English Quiz 2 based on Reading comprehension for Banks and SSC exam

25/01/2021

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English Quiz 2 based on Reading comprehension for Banks and SSC Exam

Reading comprehension t Quiz is an important component of English section in banking and other government examinations . Reading comprehension becomes very scoring if attempted in a right way. Our website provides better approach for Reading comprehension. We provide Reading comprehension for IBPS PO, SBI PO, RRB PO, SBI clerk, IBPS PO, SSC exam. Reading comprehension is designed from beginner to advance level. Reading comprehension involves all the types of Reading comprehension for prelims and mains level. Our Reading comprehension quiz will help many students in having a good grip on reading comprehension . Reading comprehension will increase their overall score. Reading comprehension is a must have tool to the marks.

Directions (1-10): Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/ phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

I am always a little uncomfortable when I find myself unable to admire something which all the rest of the world admires or at least is reported to admire. Am I, or is the world the fool? Is it the world’s taste that is bad, or is mine? I am relevant to condemn myself, and almost resultant to believe that I alone am right. Thus, when all men are not the professors of English literature only, but Milton too and Wordsworth and Keats assure me that Spenser is a great poet, I wonder what to do. For to me, Spenser seems only a virtuoso, a man with the conjuror’s tricks of extracting perfectly rhymed stanzas by the hundred, out of an empty mind. Perhaps I am unduly prejudiced in favour of sense; but it has always seemed to me that poets should have something to say. Spenser’s is the art of saying nothing, at length, in rhyme and rumbling meter. The world admires; but I cannot. I wish I could.

Here at Agra, I find myself afflicted by the same sense of discomfort. The TajMahal is one of the seven wonders. My guide assures me that it is “perhaps the most beautiful building in the world.” Following his advice, we drove out to have our first look at the marvel by the light of the setting sun. Nature did its best for the Taj. The west was duly red, and orange and yellow, and, finally, emerald green, grading into pale and flawless blue towards the zenith. Two evening stars, Venus and Mercury, pursued the sunken sun. The sacred Jumna was like a sheet of silver between its banks. Beyond it, the plains stretched greyly away into the vapours of distance. The gardens were rich with turf, with cypresses, palms and peepul trees, with long shadows and rosy lights, with the noise of grasshoppers, the calling of enormous owls, and the indefatigable simmering of a coppersmith bird. Nature, I repeat, did its best. But though it adorned, it could not improve the works of man. The Taj, even at sunset, even reverberated upside down from tanks and rivers, even in conjunction with melancholy cypresses – the Taj was a disappointment.

My failure to appreciate the Taj is due, I think, to the fact that, while I am very fond of architecture and the decorative arts, 1 am very little interested in the expensive or the picturesque, as such and by themselves. Now the great qualities of the Taj are precisely those of expensiveness and picturesqueness. Milk-white amongst the dark cypresses, flawlessly mirrored, it is positively the ‘Toteninsel’ of Arnold Bocklin come true. And its costliness is fabulous. Its marbles carved and filigreed, are patterned with an inlay of precious stones. The smallest rose or poppy on the royal tombs is an affair of twenty or thirty cornelian onyxes, agates, chrysolites. The New Jerusalem was not more rich in variety of precious pebbles. If the Viceroy took it into his head to build another Taj identical with the first, he would have to spend as much a fifteenth, or even perhaps a twelfth or tenth of what he spends each year on the Indian Army. Imagination staggers…

This inordinate costliness is what most people seem to like about the Taj. And if they are disappointed with it (I have met several who were, and always for the same reason), it is because the building is not quite so expensive as they thought it was. Clambering among the roofs they have found evidence to show that the marble is only a veneer over cheaper masonry, not solid. It is a swindle! Meanwhile, the guides and guardians are earning their money by insisting on the Taj’s costliness. ‘All marble’, they say, ‘all precious stones’. They want you to touch as well as look, to realize the richness not with eyes alone, but intimately with the fingers. I have seen guides in Europe doing the same. Expensiveness is everywhere admired. The average tourist is moved to greater raptures by St. Peter’s than by his own St. Paul’s. The interior of the Roman basilica is all of marble. St. Paul’s is only Portland stone. The relative architectural merits of the two churches are not for a moment considered.

Architecturally, the worst features of the Taj are its minarets. These four thin tapering towers at the four corners of the platform on which the Taj is built are among the ugliest structures ever erected by human hands. True, the architect might offer a number of excuses for his minarets. He would begin by pointing out that, the dimensions of the main building and the platform being what they are, it was impossible to given the four subsidiary structures more than a certain limited mass between them, a mass small in proportion to the Taj itself. Architecturally, no doubt, it would have been best to put this definitely limited mass into four low buildings of comparatively large plan. But, unfortunately, the exigencies of religion made it necessary to put the available mass into minarets. The mass being small, it was necessary that the minarets should by very thin for their heights.

Q1. The author feels uncomfortable because he

(a) does not know what others do.

(b) is ashamed of his lack of knowledge.

(d) is not able to appreciate art.

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.1.(c)

Exp. Refer the first sentence of the passage, “I am always a little uncomfortable when I find myself unable to admire something which all the rest of the world admires or at least is reported to admire.”

Q2. Why, according to the author, do people admire the Taj?

(a) It is a very picturesque building.

(b) It is a very expensive building.

(d) It has a lovely layout of gardens.

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.2.(b)

Exp.Refer the first sentence of the fourth paragraph, “This inordinate costliness is what most people seem to like about the Taj. And if they are disappointed with it (I have met several who were, and always for the same reason), it is because the building is not quite so expensive as they thought it was. Clambering among the roofs they have found evidence to show that the marble is only a veneer over cheaper masonry, not solid. It is a swindle! Meanwhile, the guides and guardians are earning their money by insisting on the Taj’s costliness. ‘All marble’, they say, ‘all precious stones’. They want you to touch as well as look, to realize the richness not with eyes alone, but intimately with the fingers”.

Q3. Which of the following is not an indicator of costliness of the Taj?

(a) It is made of milk white marble.

(b) The marble is all carved and filigreed.

(d) The marble has been used as a veneer.

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.3.(d)

Exp.Refer the second and third sentences of the fourth paragraph, “Clambering among the roofs they have found evidence to show that the marble is only a veneer over cheaper masonry, not solid. It is a swindle! Meanwhile, the guides and guardians are earning their money by insisting on the Taj’s costliness. ‘All marble’, they say, ‘all precious stones’.”

Q4. Which of the following is the worst feature of the Taj?

(a) The four subsidiary structures.

(b) The main building.

(d) The dimensions of the platform.

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.4.(a)

Exp.Refer the first sentence of the last paragraph, “Architecturally, the worst features of the Taj are its minarets. These four thin tapering towers at the four corners of the platform on which the Taj is built are among the ugliest structures ever erected by human hands.”

Q5. According to the author, a poet should

(a) say something in his poetry.

(b) extract perfectly rhymed stanzas.

(d) be sure of what he says.

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.5.(a)

Exp.Refer the last part of the first paragraph, “Spenser’s is the art of saying nothing, at length, in rhyme and rumbling meter. The world admires; but I cannot. I wish I could.”

Q6. Which of the following poets the author not admire?

(a) Milton

(b) Wordsworth

(d) Keats

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.6.(c)

Exp. Option (c) is correct choice.

Q7. “I find myself afflicted with the same sense of discomfort.” What discomfort does the author refer to?

(a) His belief that he alone is right.

(b) His inability to admire what others admire.

(d) His fondness of architecture.

(e) None of the above

Ans.7.(b)

Exp.Refer the first sentence of the passage, “I am always a little uncomfortable when I find myself unable to admire something which all the rest of the world admires or at least is reported to admire.”[/su_spoiler]

Q8. “The indefatigable hammering of a coppersmith bird.” Here ‘indefatigable’ means

(a) tired

(b) rewarding

(d) admirable

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.8.(c)

Exp.Indefatigable means (of a person or their efforts) persisting tirelessly.

Q9. What was the effect of the setting sun on the Taj according to the author?

(a) It made it appear rather gloomy.

(b) It improved the beauty of the Taj.

(d) It made it look ghostly.

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.9.(c)

Exp.Refer the second and third-last sentences of the second paragraph, “The TajMahal is one of the seven wonders. My guide assures me that it is “perhaps the most beautiful building in the world.” Following his advice, we drove out to have our first look at the marvel by the light of the setting sun.”

Q10. One of the main qualities of the Taj is its picturesqueness. Which of the following does not indicate this quality?

(a) Milk-white among dark cypresses

(b) Flawlessly mirrored in the tanks and the river

(d) The noise of grasshoppers and the hooting of the owls

(e) None of the above

Answer & Explanation

Ans.10.(d)

Exp.Option (d) is not indicated as the quality of the Taj which is “The noise of grasshoppers and the hooting of the owls”.

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